On the Twelfth Day of December

… of Bob Barker. C’mon down, he’s 85.

… of Connie Francis. Do you suppose she’s still trying to get to where the boys are at 70.

… Dionne Warwick. Perhaps she’d just as soon walk on by her 68th birthday.

… of Dickey Betts. The member of the Allman Brothers band is 65.

… of Cathy Rigby. The Olympic gymnast is 56.

… of Tracy Austin. The one-time tennis prodigy is 46.

… of Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly. She’s 38.

John Jay was born on this date in 1745. Jay, a delegate from New York, served in the First and Second Continental Congresses. During the War for Independence Jay served as president of the Continental Congress, minister plenipotentiary to Spain, and peace commissioner (in which he negotiated vital treaties with Spain and France). He was Secretary of Foreign Affairs under the Articles of Confederation. During the ratification of the Constitution, Jay was author of the Federalist Papers, along with Madison and Hamilton. He was the first Chief Justice of the United States. While Chief Justice, Jay negotiated a vital, though flawed treaty with Great Britain in 1794, the Jay Treaty.

Pennsylvania ratified the Constitution on this date in 1787, thereby becoming the second state.

The first radio transmission across the Atlantic was made by Guglielmo Marconi on this date in 1901 (Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada). The message consisted of Morse code for the letter “s”. That would be dot-dot-dot.

Which is better than a lot of stuff on the air 107 years later.